I Promise
by GaaShikaNaruJiKe
Summary: Sasuke and Naruto made promises long ago and will do anything to keep them. Even abandon all they know.
1. Chapter 1

I'm back! I'm sorry, but I just got a hold of my 2 other cousins and they had completely forgotten the challenge. They said they'll get right onit. So in apology I'm going to write a multichapter story. Wish me luck, because I tend to get distracted easily. This is the prologue! Tell me your thoughts, onegai.

--

When Naruto and Sasuke are 6 years old

It was a calm and peaceful day outside and you could see two little boys sitting outside just look at the clouds.

"Promise me you won't leave me behind," was the simple statement said by a little blond boy.

"What do you mean?" a question asked by his confused ravven-haired friend.

"Just promise me, onegai, 'Suke. I don't wanna be alone."

"Alright, 'Ruto. I promise that I won't leave you behind. Ever."

A simple promise between two friends. A promise they'll never forget.

--

2 years later

Once again, it was a calm and peaceful day, but this time there was only one boy outside. He was waiting for his friend, who was unusually late.

"They're all dead!" a raven-haired boy cries hysterically.

"Sasuke, what do you mean?" asks his blonde-haired friend.

"Itachi killed them all! I don't know why!"

"Killed who, Sasuke?" asks Naruto while trying to calm Sasuke.

"My family! I'm all ... alone now," Sasuke voice lowers in volume as the information settles in.

"You're not alone. You promised to never leave me, and I promise to always be there for you, no matter what," another promise made, but by Naruto this time.

"Always, even if I leave, if I decide to get revenge?"

"Always. I'll be there always."

--

Whatever year it is that they join Iruka's class

Naruto and Sasuke were sitting in a little clearing just staring at the clouds. Well, Naruto was anyway. Sasuke was trying to fidgure out a way that they'll be able to keep their promises to eachother. Just as he was about to give up he remembered something he had overheard one of the older students complain about.

"Naruto, you know that Genin are divided into groups of three after they graduate?"

"Yeah," he answered, wondering where this was going.

"I think I figured how it is they are divided."

"How?"  
"They divide us according to our talents and grades."

"That's great! Now that we know that we can make sure we're never separated!" Naruto wanted to keep his promise.

"But how do we do it?"

"I don't know."

"We can try to match our grades and get right in the middle of the grades so we're teamed up with someone equal to us." Sasuke thought that this plan was brilliant. He didn't want to get stuck with someone who would hold him and Naruto back.

"We could try that, but there's still a chance that it won't work. We don't even know what they consider 'in the middle.' Besides I don't think that the village would like it if you had the same grades as mine. Why do they hate me, Sasuke?" Naruto, with a simple statement was able to crush Sasuke's idea, and with a simple question showed his one weakness.

"Because they're stupid. But you're right, that plan might not work." Sasuke hated seeing Naruto down, especially due to stupid villagers.

"How about I become the deadlast and you try and reach for the top of the class, we both know you can easily do it." A simple solution.

"You can do it just as easily and I don't think it's fair to you anyway." And it was one that Sasuke was definitely not happy with.

"It'll be fine, as long as we're on the same team I'll can deal with it." Naruto refused to be separated from Sasuke and would do everything he could to stay by his side.

After that Naruto's grade starting slipping and while the teachers never took notice nor cared, the Hokage was wondering why. He'd sit there and wonder, 'why, he's such a bright boy. Why?'

--

After a particularly nasty comment to Naruto

"Naruto, don't worry about it, they're not worth it," Sasuke says, all the while despising the villagers for making Naruto feel this way.

"But why do they hate me so much?" A simple question that Naruto asked himself a lot.

"I don't know. Just ignore them, they don't matter," 'Only I should matter to you, Naruto,' Sasuke thought, desperate for Naruto to understand.

"They don't matter to you?"

"No. Only you matter to me. Do they matter to you?"

"No, I guess they don't." Naruto replied, knowing that Sasuke was the only one that mattered to him.

"Come on, let's practice the moves Iruka was showing us in class today, and don't forget to pretend to get frustrated when I get it right in class. You almost forgot the other day."

"I know, I know. Sometimes it hard to act like I hate you and love Sakura. She's annoying with how she's always obsessing over you."

"I noticed. Now, come on," Sasuke said, wanting to get Naruto's mind off all that don't matter.

--

Naruto finds out why and becomes a Genin

"Sasuke! Sasuke!" Naruto yells, jumping on Sasuke's bed to wake him up. He's had a spare key since the massacre so Sasuke wouldn't have to be alone all the time.

"Ugh...what is it, Naru-chan? It's like... 2 in the morning. Naru-chan...Naruto, what's wrong?" Sasuke could see Naruto crying in the dim moonlight.

"I found out why they call me a demon."

"You did? Why do they?" Sasuke asked. 'Please, tell me.'

"Because I really am a demon!," Naruto replies then starts to cry.

"Naruto, what do you mean? You don't look like a demon and you don't act like one either," Ssuke's confused and he doesn't like to be confused.

"I'm a jinchuuriki. I'm the host of the Kyuubi! The container!"

"What?" Sasuke is officially lost.

"You probably hate me now, too, don't you?" Naruto asks, fearing the answer.

"No, I don't hate you. You said it yourself, you're the container of the Kyuubi, not the Kyuubi itself," Sasuke says in an attempt to calm Naruto down.

"But I have the Kyuubi in me and it caused so much destruction," Naruto is getting hysterical by now.

"Think of it this way, you have a glass and a carton of milk, okay?"

"Okay."

"Now you fill the glass with milk, but does that make the glass itself milk?"

"No."

"Exactly. The demon is in you, but you are definitely not a demon. Understand?"

"I guess so."

"That's good. Hey, is that a hitai-ate?" Sasuke asks, his curiousity getting the better of him now that Naruto was calmed down.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm a Genin now, just like you," Naruto proudly proclaimed, wanting 'Suke to be proud of him.

"How, I thought Iruka failed you?"

"He did, but he passed me after ..." and Naruto goes on telling what had happened.

--

Iruka calling out the teams

"Team 7: Sakura, Naruto, ... and Sasuke," Iruka called out, a little apprehensive considering Naruto and Sasuke hated eachother.

Naruto had jumped up in false cheer when Sakura's name was called but he immediately pretended to sulk the moment Sasuke's name had been called, despite how happy he truely was. He was finally a Genin and on the same team as Sasuke. They could keep their promises to each other. He couldn't be happier.

I hope you enjoyed it! I even denied myself the sims until I was finished with the prologue. And now that I'm done I can finally get on the sims. Yay!


	2. Chapter 2

I'm back!

"speaking"

'thoughts'

_flashback_

"YOSH! YOUR FLAMES OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHTLY, SAKURA-CHAN! YOU TOOK THE TIME TO PLAN A PICNIC IN WHICH EVERYONE IS INVITED! I THANK YOU SAKURA-CHAN FOR YOUR UNENDING KINDNESS!" Lee, his ever exuberant self, yelled in a friendly voice. Looking at him now, you'd never know what had happened to him that had nearly cost him his life as a shinobi. He owed it all to Tsunade.

"Lee is right, Sakura. Thank you for going through the trouble to invite all of us," said TenTenith a smile on her face. It took a lot of convincing on her part to get Neji here, in the end she had threatened to use him as target practice. Needless to say, Neji came.

"You're welcome," was all Sakura could think to say. She invited all of the rookies and Gai's team.

"Yeah this was nice of you. I just wish Naruto had the decency to show up! I bet Sasuke was was just held up or something. I also bet that it was Naruto who held him up," Ino, her ever loud self, made herself known by this little comment.

"Yeah right, like Naruto would bother with that Uchiha. They hate eachother." But even as Kiba said that, some others had noticed the emotions that had passed through Sakura's eyes at the words everyone knew to be the turth. Unless, it isn't the truth.

"Yeah...they do," Sakura said it so convincingly that the ones who had thought they saw emotions pass through her eyes decided it was juts a trick of the light. But anyone that knew Sakura well could tell that she was hiding something. Unfortunately, even Ino could no longer read the girl that was once her best friend. The only ones that could read her now were the ones that didn't care, even though they were her teammates. It still hurt her to think of the day she found out.

*Flashback to sometime before the mission to Wave*

_"Where's Sasuke-kun? I bet he's training to become even stronger." *squee* "He's so dreamy."_

_*clash**clang**boom*_

_"H-huh? What was that?"_

_Sakura crept closer to where she heard a noise but the closer she got the farther apart the noises got. When she finally found the source of the noise, she was shocked. She saw Sasuke and Naruto. With kunai at eachother's throats. And...glaring at eachother. No surprise there._

_'What?! What's going on here?!' Just as Sakura was about to reveal her position in attempt to stop them from killing eachother, they shocked her. They started to laugh. Not quiet, hush-hush laughter, but loud laughter. After a while they collapsed to the ground because they were laughing so hard._

_Sakura was now officially confused._

_When their laughter finally died down, they leaned their backs against eachother in contentment and started talking about something important. Att least, that's what Sakura thought they were doing. She couldn't hear them properly from where she sat. After finally giving up she started looking around at what was left of the training grounds. Craters, deep gashes, uprooted trees, completely destroyed trees, and weapons littered the ground. The damage was so great that Sakura wondered why she hadn't noticed it before._

_'I bet Sasuke did this,' thought Sakura. 'After all, Naruto couldn't possibly know such powerful jutsus. Sasuke-kun is so strong. He's perfect for me. Mrs. Uchiha. I like the sound of it'_

_Before Sakura could continue her "Mrs. Uchiha" fantasy, a voice interrupted her thought._

_"Haruno, you can come out now. We knew you were there all along," said Naruto, glancing out of the corner of his eye at her._

_'Haruno? Since when did Naruto-baka call me Haruno? And how dare he act so high and mighty! I bet Sasuke-kun told him I was here.' Sakura clearly underestimated her teammate._

_"Don't make Naruto repeat himself. Come out from behind that tree," Sasuke calmly stated all the while never looking in her direction, as he turned to his left._

_"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spy on you while you were training Sasuke. I was-"_

_"We are well aware of what you were doing. You were looking for Sasuke so you could ask him if he wanted to go out with you. I don't know why you bother since you don't have a chance," Naruto while he turned around to face Sasuke, and in the process face Sakura._

_"What?! How dare you speak to me that way, baka! How would you know what Sasuke would want?" screamed Sakura, sounding very much like a banshee. When she saw Naruto flinch, she felt a glimmer of satisfaction before it was wiped away by Sasuke's next words._

_"Of course he would know. Naruto and I have no secrets between us," Sasuke said as he glared at her before he turned the rest of the way around so that he was now facing Naruto with a questioning gaze. "Your ears okay?"_

_"Yeah, she just needs to learn to be quieter," Naruto stated before a foxy grin came upon his face._

_"There's a lot of things she needs to learn if she doesn't want to hold us back."_

_"Us? Sasuke, what do you mean? If anything is holding our team back, it'd be Naruto. After all, he barely passed. How did you pass anyway? I bet you sucked up to the teachers."_

_"Sakura?" Sasuke asked with an eerie calmness around him._

_"Yes Sasuke-kun?" Sakura inquired, thinking that he would agree with her. She was wrong._

_"You are weak. You cling too much. You put more time into your outfit then your skills. Your stamina is horrendous. And I'm willing to bet that you'd freeze up if we ever had to go against a person that would have no reserves about killing us. You are a liability."_

_"Sasuke-" Sakura was interrupted before she could ask him anything._

_"Haruno, don't you get it? We don't like you. If we ever had to go against a serious threat, you'd die, because we wouldn't cover your back. Toughen up and stop relying on Kakashi-sensei and us."_

_"But-"_

_"Haruno, shut up. We don't want to hear it. Start taking your trining seriously and then we might consider looking at you as if you were not dirt. Maybe. Come on, Naru-chan, let's train some more," Sasuke said, now ignoring Sakura and resorting to the pet name he gave Naruto when they were younger._

_"Coming, 'Suke," replied Naruto, also calling Sasuke by his pet name._

_Right then Sakura realized that she really didn't matter to them. She was just a nuisance they'd rather do without. Now she realized that they would never acknowledge her unless she got stronger. After all, what eld\se has she got to do now. Sasuke has proven to her that he's not even remotely interested in her. There was no point. All she could do was train so she could defend herself, because now she knew that they would not. And knowing that hurt._

_*End Flashback*_

Ever since then Sakura had become a little bit quieter, especially after they had proven their comments true. She hadn't done anything in the mission to Wave. She had been useless against the fight with Zabuza. While she had proven to be a little less of a hindrance during the Chuunin exam, they once again proved that she had a long ways to go before she'd be up to par. She still remembers Naruto's face when all she could do was tie with Ino. He remembered his words as well. He had said that they were right, and she should quit as a shinobi. But she didn't. But they still found things to criticize her about. Like this little get together she had planned. She was hoping that if they showed up, they'd stop being so close lipped about everything and actually make friends outside of eachother. But they didn't show up.

She wishes she could tell someone about the things that she knew, but she knew that even while they were content with ignorinig her, the minute she told she would regret it. They never paid any attention to her, unless other people around, then Naruto started showering her with attention. She didn't know why.

"Sakura? How troublesome. What's up, you seem distracted?" asked Shikamaru, while all the rest looked onward with keen interest.

"Huh? What do you mean? Nothing's wrong?" Sakura said, flustered.

"We didn't say something was wrong, Forehead," Ino, with a very smug look on her face, responded.

'Crap, how am I going to get out of this?' Sakura thought, starting to panic, but only internally, She wouldn't...couldn't show them this minor weakness.

*BANG*

"What was that?" asked Neji, the first to get his bearings.

Cliffhanger! I wrote for 2 1/2 hours straight! I would've kept writing, but I didn't feel like it. Sorry that it took so long. Review please!


End file.
